In case you missed it...buried last week under the crush of COVID-19 media coverage was pedestrian news that the legislature left town without finishing its prescribed business.  Not long ago, this development was deemed breaking news inciting outrage and condemnation from good government watchdogs and was broadly viewed as an aberration in the "state that works!"  Sadly, unfinished legislative obligations are now just considered a part of the process and the new political reality.  

Caught up in the apathy is the Capital Investments Bill.  The bonding bill should have been a layup for lawmakers, but the larger politics of COVID-19, Executive Powers and Emergency Orders got in the way.  Lawmakers have hit the pause button until their possible return on or around June 12, with the hoped-for intention of passing the measure.   The Governor released his $2.6 billion bonding bill in January, while the Democrat-controlled House introduced their $2.5 billion proposal in early May. The Republican-led Senate has a $998 million bill with an additional $400 million in trunk highway bonds.  Somewhere in between lies a compromise that will greatly assist a construction market that teeters precariously close to sliding into a post-COVID induced recession.

Building Jobs Coalition Plans Media Advocacy 

On Wednesday, June 3 (9:30 am), the Building Jobs Coalition (BJC) will be holding a virtual press conference drawing attention to the critical need to pass the bonding bill and the impact the measure has on local economies, construction workforce employment and construction market opportunity.The BJC is jointly led by AGC, the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades and the Minnesota Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Collectively, the group advocates for continued and sustained state investment in building and related construction infrastructure that se rves to provide benefits across the state while sustaining and supporting all aspects of the construction industry. 

New AGC Econometric Predictive Model is Game-Changing

Today's world runs on data and data analytics.  We capture and measure everything, but often miss the mark on applying data to tell a story or draw conclusions.  It has been difficult to quantify construction activity and the resulting impact on the broader economy along with the direct benefit construction brings to the workforce and the industry.  AGC of America recently introduced a new platform called the Construction Impact Model that has potential to deliver customizable, game-changing data analytics to the challenge of equating how construction investment levels influence various types of economic activity.  For more information on how to use this tool, click here.

Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have built a platform that allows users to manipulate a number of variables, including construction types, investment levels, duration of investment, etc. and estimate the resultant economic impact across a broad array of economic sectors in the economy.  The model breaks down outcomes into Direct, Indirect, and Induced categories of economic impact.  Overall, the model predicts the number of construction jobs and resultant economic output that every $1 billion invested in construction in Minnesota sustains ( see this chart for details).  Going forward, the model will help better tell the story of how construction not only builds the foundation for Minnesota's economic future, but how construction contributes to the Minnesota economy.  

Tim Worke, CEO